What happened after Iraq?
by MarenMary93
Summary: Barbie left the army on an honorary discharge. Here is a story about what happened after the attack that left him wounded. Rated T due to language, Hurt!Barbie
1. Waking up

**I think there is a lack of UtD fanfictions at the moment, so I decided that I should start writing some...**

**This one is centered around Dale "Barbie" Barbara, when he served in Iraq. I decided to write a fic about what made him quit the army. **

**I suppose there'll be more suffering in later chapters, than in the first two ones...**

**Hope you enjoy!**

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"Captain Barbara!" a male voice said as Barbie startled awake. "Captain Barbara! Stay still!"

Barbie tried to focus enough to see who were talking to him. He didn't really understand what the man was saying either, but he heard his own surname. He tried to move, but was suddenly hit by a bolt of pain arising from his right leg.

"Dale! You are at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital! And right now I need you to stay still!" The same voice told him, but Barbie only caught a few words of it. Now Barbie could see him. It was a man wearing a surgeon gown. He was also wearing a mask, so all Barbie could see of the man's face was the area around his eyes.

It was first then that Barbie realized that something covering his own mouth and nose, so he brought an arm up to remove it.

"Your team were caught in an attack by the Iraqi side. You have suffered a GSW to your leg, and your knee has also suffered a major trauma." The doctor said as he helped Barbie remove his mask once he realized that his patient tried to say something.

"It's 'Barbie'" Barbie said once the mask that were strapped onto him was removed. Then he passed out once again

Hours later he woke up in a post-op zone. Everything wasn't quite as hazy as when he had woken up the last time, but it was still a bit blurred. His right leg started throbbing as he became more and more awake. After a few minutes it had built up to being straight up painful.

He decided he wanted to see the cause of the pain and removed the blanket that was draped over him. He had a hard time understanding what he saw when he did. His leg was covered in gauze, and inside a freaky-looking frame. He guessed the frame's purpose was to lock his leg, and keep whatever was wrong with it immobilized. But the look of the metal frame holding his leg together was terrifying!

He only remembered bits and pieces of the last two days, and they all seemed to blend together.

"You're awake Barbie?" Barbie recognized the voice. It was one of the voices that had been in the background when he first woke up here, but he also recognized it from his hometown in Kansas.

"Henry?" Barbie barely managed to croak out. Oh my God! His throat was dry.

"Yeah… It's me… Do you remember what the other doctor told you before your surgery?"

Barbie shook his head. He remembered being spoken to, but that was it.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Iraq, last time I checked…" Barbie managed to say before he started coughing.

"That's right" the Dr. Henry Winchester said as he poured up a glass of water for Barbie. "You're in Iraq. Right now you're at one of America's portable hospitals. Your team was attacked by a group from the Iraqi side, you have a GSW, a gunshot wound, approximately five inches below your knee. And your knee has a lot of damage to it too."

Barbie took the glass offered and took a sip of it. He was sure there were no better feeling in the world than drinking water when your throat was so dry that it ached.

"How's the rest of the team?" he then asked. He was worried about his teammates. He was one of the two highest ranking in his platoon, so he felt everything that could have happened was his responsibility.

"You took the worst of it…" the doctor answered him, like if he knew what Barbie was thinking. "there were two more that was brought in here, one with a simple fracture to his lower leg. The other one had a compound fracture to his arm, and a grace wound to his side. They're both at the canteen."

"Good…" Barbie nodded, before he started worrying about who else was hurt. "Who are the two others that got hurt?"

"Let me see…" The doctor flipped through his sheets and found what he was looking for. "The one with the arm injury is Lieutenant B. Olsen, and the one with the leg injury is Corporal J. Young…"

"Okey… And they're gonna be fine…?"

"They are better off than you are, that's for sure…" Henry gave him a blink of an eye and placed himself on the bed next to Barbie's. "Sooo… You want to tell me why my best friend still has, what I think is, a record-holding tendency to get into major problems like this?"

Barbie gave a short laugh. He had expected something like this from his best friend, once he met him in this situation. Barbie had as Henry put it 'a record-holding tendency to get into major problems', while Henry on the other hand usually tried to help Barbie out of them when they occurred.

"I don't know…" he answered after a few seconds, "I've just always thought of it as fun I guess…"

They both laughed at that one, at least until Barbie moved his leg by accident.

"OW! FUCK!" He grabbed a hold of the metal railing on his bed as he tried to steady himself, but the pain flaring from his leg overran just about everything. In the meanwhile, Henry had jumped to his feet and tried to hold Barbie's leg in a still position, he tried to hold it still against the tremors that ran through Barbie's body due to the sheer amount of pain.

After about a minute, when the pain had died down to a dull, throbbing ache and Henry decided to release his grip of the brace around his best friend's leg, Barbie laid back in his bed.

"How long is it going to be like this?" Barbie asked and gestured briefly towards his injured leg, as a tear threatened to escape from the corner of his eye. He swiped the tear away before it had a real chance to fall. Henry could hear the despair in Barbie's voice. It hurt him to know that his best friend, the one that never even seemed to be able to think of consequences. The one that never seemed to know how to back down or chicken out. The one who was always sure that things eventually would go his way… It hurt Henry to know that this man, at this moment couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"Honestly…" Henry stood up and wiped away a tear of his own, before he tried to give Barbie a reassuring pat on the shoulder "I don't know…"

"What does that mean?" He could feel his gut hit the floor. He hated when Henry didn't know… Because that either meant really bad news, or it meant that it was all depending on luck, which also meant pretty bad news as far as he was concerned.

"Well, Ace… That means…" He paused a brief moment to decide how he was going to explain this, "That means that I don't know _when_ the pain is going to stop… I wish I could tell you something else, but it all depends on how your leg heals after the trauma and the surgery…"

"I will be walking again...? Right?"

"Looks like it... But I can't promise anything about how well you will walk, or how much pain you'll be in when you do… But for the first four months you're NOT ALLOWED to walk, for the first two-three you're not even allowed to put weight on that leg!" Henry knew this would only go one way from this point on. Making Barbie doubt something could be done, always ended with him proving that it could be done just fine… Even if it meant he risked a couple of months in cast… He had witnessed that more than once, and it might have been what set Henry on the track to become a doctor…

"Just watch me! I'll be walking as soon as I am allowed to!" There was that good old Barbie attitude that Henry knew they both needed right now. He knew that somehow Barbie would be okey.

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**Okey, that was the first chapter... Let me know what you think!  
I love to get feedback, good or bad! Whatever that can make me better!**

**Question:**

**Would you like there to be more UtD fanfics?**

**What genre do you enjoy reading the most?**

**Why not write some yourself?**


	2. Going home

**Second chapter...  
Thanks to those who actually have read this far!**

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Barbie wrestled his crutches as he got closer to the canteen, his leg throbbed like crazy when he sat still, but now when he was moving it was just out of this world. _Never thought I'd even think this, but it's been too long since the last time I had to use crutches…_ he thought as he slowly made his way across the open space between the sleeping hall and the canteen.

Once he was inside he saw Henry sitting at a table drinking a cup of joe, that probably tasted more like waste oil than coffee. There was an extra tray at his table that hadn't been touched yet, and Henry gestured for him to sit down at that spot.

"Brought your breakfast over here for you, I was tired of seeing you trying to balance a tray at the same time that you're trying to balancing yourself" Henry said with a smirk.

"I bet…" Barbie said and mirrored the smirk.

"Anyhow… Today is the day right?" Henry asked, looking into the grim cup of what passed as coffee around these parts "You're going home right…?"

"Today's the day!"

They looked at each other for a short moment, the place they were in right now was hell on earth, but that didn't really matter when you had your best buddy there along with you. It made stuff easier to handle. Then Barbie sat down and they both ate in silence. They didn't want to talk about the only topic that was possible to talk about today, Barbie leaving for the U.S. and Henry staying here another eight months.

"You take good care of that leg now!" Henry commanded Barbie.

"You bet I will!" he answered with a smile, "And when you come home, we'll go on a hiking trip! Take a few days to just relax in the outdoors…"

"Just like when we were kids then…?"

Barbie nodded his answer, "Just like that!"

"Just, ehm… just promise me one thing…"

"Whatever you say!" Barbie smiled, he hoped something good was coming.

"Let those hiking trips be less eventful than those we had when we were kids… I'm tired of helping you hobble out of forests because you broke your leg climbing a tree, or got bitten by a snake…"

"…or managed to cut a couple of veins with my knife trying to open a can of beans…" Barbie finished for him.

"Yeah… You know… The 'average' stuff like that…" Henry smiled back.

"Promise… Or, at least I'll try…"

That made Henry laugh, he basically knew that the request was to big. It was Barbie after all.

"I've gotta go now… Bye…"

"I'll see you at home then… Bye!" Henry said after they shared a short hug.

"Oh, and one thing you have to promise me;" Barbie yelled to Henry as he was about to enter the plane, "come home safe!"

"I'll do my best, or die trying!" Henry hollered back and gave him a thumbs up.

Barbie himself couldn't help but smiling at that comment, and decided to return the thumbs up.

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**I guess I will put him through more suffering in the next chapter. Just had to warm up the story first XD**

**Thanks again to those who has taken the time to read through this! **


	3. Meeting dad

**Well, I decided that the main reason Barbie had for enlisting was a quarrel he had had with his dad, that ended with him being kicked out of home, four years prior to his injury.**

**I also decided to 'make him a family'.**

**I hope you enjoy reading this!**

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He felt a bit out of place as he stood in front of his parents house in Lawrence, Kansas. He was definitely out of his comfort zone. And that meant a lot, he usually adapted very well to new things. In the war he had been almost too adapted…

Yet, right now... He could have sworn that he was just about to shit himself the moment before he extended his arm to knock on the door. The last time he had seen them was a couple of weeks before he left for Iraq. He and his dad hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms either…

The quarrel had been about Barbie's choices in life, and about him sometimes being on the wrong side of the law. Well, the right side didn't always have enough action for him…. His father's last words to him before he left was; Go! And unless you change your ways, don't ever come back!

The fight had started when he had been arrested for driving, way too fast, under influence. It had been the straw that broke the camel's back, Barbie guessed.

Now he stood there in front of the medium large house, whit the white picket fence around the yard. It looked like it always had, maybe except for a bike in the yard, or a tree-house that were no longer there. It was like they had erased all traces of him ever living there.

He was nervous, but he needed a place to stay, and at the moment he didn't have enough money for even a cheap ass motel room. He had done credit card frauds earlier, but he had tried his best to change over the four years. Since his dad had thrown him out…

He knocked on the door, and tried to make the knocking sound determined, but it came off just like he felt, uncertain. He was afraid of what greeting he might get. They probably didn't even know he was injured. He had listed his two brothers as his emergency contacts. And by the letters they had extended, talking about him wasn't accepted in the house, at least not when dad were home.

"Coming!" he could hear his dad's rough voice yelling from the kitchen or living room somewhere. Then he could hear heavy footsteps entering the hallway. Oh my God, he wished he could just run away and hide behind one of his mom's rose bushes.

He heard the lock turning and waited for the door to open up. Then he stood face to face with his old man.

His dad grabbed him by the collar and pushed him a little bit away, enough for Barbie to lose his balance.

"What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to stay gone?" His dad managed to yell at him, before he realized that Barbie had fallen to the ground, was clutching his brace-covered leg, and was actually crying. That took Dale Sr. aback, he couldn't remember to ever having seen Barbie cry. And he had witnessed him getting a lot of injuries over the years. It didn't matter if it was a scrape, a cut or a broken bone… Barbie never cried, at least not in front of him.

The sight of his oldest son on the ground, visibly hurt, crying… Made Dale Sr. forget everything that he had ever thought Barbie had done wrong, and he threw himself to his knees beside his oldest.

"Son, are you hurt?" the worry in his voice was evident.

Barbie wanted to shake his head, wanted to brush this off like every other injury he'd had. He wanted to be invincible like he always acted, but he knew he wouldn't manage to get up off the ground without his father's help.

After the pain had subsided to a bearable amount, Barbie finally nodded.

"I'm sorry son… I didn't see…" his father was blaming himself for once…

"It's alright dad…" Barbie wiped his eyes for the tears that was still there. He hadn't expected his dad to take an 180⁰ turn like that. He had expected to be yelled at for hours to come…

"Are you ready to get up?" his father asked hunching beside him, "Or should I call an ambulance?" he added after casting another glance at his son's injured leg.

"No." Barbie swallowed, "No ambulance… Just give me a hand, would you?"

His leg felt like it was going to burst, but he knew that the fall hadn't made any additional damage. He would have felt that even more. He gripped his dad's extended hand, and pulled himself up, thankful of the supportive hand on his back.

"Let's get you in. You should probably keep that leg elevated…" Barbie could hear the concern in his dad's voice as he helped him up the stairs.

Elevated, yeah… He should, but that three-hour bus drive he had just finished hadn't offered that luxury.

"Thanks!" Barbie said once he was on top of the stairs at the small porch.

"So… What happened? Did you crash a motorcycle or something?" His dad asked as he placed a hot cup of coffee on the table by the chair Barbie sat in. It was first then that Barbie realized how small of an topic he had been around the dinner table, or how banned the topic was from conversation… He figured his dad didn't even know he had enlisted.

"After our fight…" Barbie began, "I spent a few weeks trying to get a job… Or just something legal, that brought money to the table…" He said before he took a sip of the scolding coffee.

"I tried a lot of different small jobs, cook, carpenter, mechanic…" he paused, " But there weren't enough action in either of those…"

He offered his dad a smirk.

"Yeah, I thought that might have been a problem for you…" His dad smiled back at him.

"Anyway… I then enlisted in the U.S. Army, and I've been with them since…" Barbie sighed.

His dad looked like he just swallowed a cow; he definitively didn't see that one coming.

When his dad didn't say anything Barbie decided that it would be best for him to keep on talking. "I took as many courses as I could, enough to make me one of the guys they depended on whenever we were out on missions… I served a couple of tours in different countries. On my fourth tour in Iraq, I got injured…" He decided the short version was more than enough at the moment. He didn't want to elaborate how bad the attack had felt. And he didn't want to tell about the flashbacks he started having straight away after the attack. His subconsciousness remembered all of it, and made sure to let him know about it just about every time he tried to sleep.

"Oh my God!" Dale Sr. sat in a chair opposite Barbie, he buried his face in his hands, and was on the verge of crying. He never wanted his kid to come in harms way like that! "I'm sorry, it's my fault!"

"No, dad. It isn't! It was my choice, and I bet I would have wound upon that path one way or another…"

After a few short hours of talking about everything that had happened since the last time they spoke a soft voice entered the house.

"Honey! I'm home!" it was his mother, Jenny, "have the boys called you about what they wanted for supper? I thought about Lasagna, what do y…"

She stopped mid-sentence when she entered the living room. Her face broke into a giant grin and she ran towards Barbie.

A low painful groan escaped his lips as she hugged him tight. The hug jolted his leg just the slightest, but he managed to bite back the worst of it. His mother still noticed and pulled back to check her son.

When she saw his leg, she gasped. Something had hurt her baby boy. The worst part was that it looked very painful too. It had to be… Barbie never complained about pain, he used to have control over such things as groans and whimpers, but not this time.

"What happened to you?" she asked as she cupped his chin. Worry lines protruded on her forehead.

Barbie didn't want to tell his mom that he had been at war. He knew how she would react.

"I wrecked my leg…" he tried and hoped she wouldn't dig too deep this time.

He could see that she wanted to ask more, but she accepted the answer and moved on.

"Do you want to stay with us? I can make up your bed!" she smiled at him. She had really missed him.

"That would be great!" Barbie smiled and looked over at his dad, whom also smiled. "Thanks!"

His mother bent down and gave him a soft kiss on his forehead, before she sat off to make his room for him.

A little while later she was finished and back. She sat down on the couch and listened as her son and her husband talked about all and nothing. She really loved having her oldest son back in the house, even if he was hurt.

"Oh, look at the time!" Jenny Barbara suddenly said, "The twins and Mary should be home at any moment now! I should have started making supper half an hour ago!"

She stood up and looked at the two men in the room, before she focused her attention to Barbie.

"What do you want to eat, Ace?" She used different nicknames on the three boys. He was Ace (or Speedy, or Tiger), Jake was Sport, Wendell was Bear and Mary was her Princess!

"Lasagna sounds great, mom!" he grinned at her, it was almost too good to believe that he was at home again. And he got to eat his mom's 'famous' Lasagna!

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**Okay, first of all; THANKS! to those whom have read this far! I hope you enjoyed it!**

**Want to let me know what you think of the story so far? **

**I always enjoy feedback!**


	4. I'm home!

**Okay, this will be a rather short chapter... **

**Enjoy!**

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A loud rumble sounded from the hallway as Jake, Wendell and Mary entered the house.

Barbie, Jenny and Dale Sr. had decided that they would surprise the three of them when they got home after football and cheerleading practice. So Jenny and Dale Sr. would just carry on as if everything was normal, then Barbie would just hobble into the kitchen when the supper was done.

"Bring your bags up to your rooms, and put your dirty clothes into the laundry bag in the bathroom!" their mom yelled from the kitchen.

"We will!" the three teenagers said in unison.

Barbie thought he was lucky none of them decided to take a look in the living room where he had just stood up, and was on his way to head over to the smaller bathroom.

His mother had set six plates in the center of the table, like she usually did. But the fact that there were six this time was commented on real quick.

"Uhm… I think you've counted wrong…" Jake said as he sat down by the table. He was the last one of the teenager's to take a seat. "there's six plates in that stack…"

Barbie chose that moment to come out of the shadows of the living room.

"That's because I'm here…" he said smiling at them.

There was first a half second where they all just looked shocked, but then they scrambled to their feet and set off in Barbie's direction.

"You're HOME!" the joyful cheers of his three siblings was like music to him, but he had to stop them before they literally threw themselves around his neck.

"Whoa! STOP!" he threw his hands up in front of him, and they stopped dead in their tracks.

"What…?" Mary asked confused, before she saw the crutches and the pain lines that was present in her oldest brother's face. "Are you HURT?" her voice was a mix between disbelief and shock.

Barbie took a hold of his crutches again and adjusted his balance before he answered her.

"Yeah… I screwed up…" he gave them a small smirk before he changed the topic, "But I still want those hugs!" he said as his face popped into a full grin!

After they had eaten supper, and Barbie had told the story of what happened (the very mild-version) for the third time that evening, they relaxed in the living room. They talked about the past four years, the years that they had been separated.

By the time the clock showed 10 p.m. Barbie was just about to pass out from exhaustion.

"I'm sorry!" he said yawning, "but I think I need to get some shut-eye…"

He shifted his position so that it would be easier for him to stand up, but his brothers were at their feet ready to help him get up by the time he was about to wrestle himself up off the recliner.

He gladly took the help offered, and smiled. This was what having a family was like, he had missed it.

"Do you need help up the stairs?" Jake asked looking him straight in the eyes.

"I don't think I _need_ help, but if you don't mind…"

"Of course we don't mind!" Wendell broke in, "we've missed you a lot the last four years you know!"

"Okay then…" Barbie smiled at his brothers standing in front of him.

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**So, what do you think?**

**Hope you enjoyed it!**

**Question: Do you think I should do a flashback chapter, from the attack?**


	5. Flashback

**Flashback chapter! **

**I'm sorry I haven't updated this story in a while, but I've been busy with Arrow fanfiction...!**

**I hope you've enjoyed reading this far! Thanks for the support!**

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Barbie was sitting on a beach-chair at one of the town's beaches. His siblings were playing volleyball further down the beach.

All though the people at the beach were happy and smiling, Barbie was trapped in a totally other place. Nobody noticed though…

LIGHTS FLASHING!  
THE ACRID SMELL OF GUNPOWDER CLINGING TO THE AIR!

The light reflecting from the lake and the sound the ball-game made was enough. He wasn't at the beach in Kansas any more…

The sound of gunfire suddenly rung through the air. Sharp ringing noises sounded off from bullets traveling at about 3000 feet per second.

"Get down!" Captain Anderson yelled to their team, at the same time as Barbie yelled for them to take cover.

Within seconds their team had hid behind every solid substance large enough to shield them from the bullets path.

"Hey! You!" Captain Jensen Anderson called after one of the lower ranking men, whom carried their radio, "Call up that we are taking fire! And that we will answer unless it's friendly fire!"

"Any one hurt?"

A few 'silent' seconds went by.

"No" the group sounded in unison.

Only a minute later Sergeant Kevin Carne threw some small rocks in Anderson and Barbie's direction.

He caught their attention, before he yelled "No friendlies in the area!"

_THE SMELL!_

The acrid smell of gunpowder hung in the air. Barbie could literarily taste it.

He re-loaded his rifle and got back into position. He could feel the air-waves from some of the bullets that was closest. They were uncomfortably close…

It frightened him that this was the eleventh time he was in a heated battle during his tours. He had had close calls, he had gotten graced by bullets before. He had seen men injured, killed by the unforgiving force the bullets had as they flew through the air.

Bullets pierced through the air around him as he tried to re-load his gun. He was scared!_ A man can only survive so many heated attacks! _Absolutely not the thought he wanted to have in his mind at the moment!

Machine gun fire sounded around them, and they were basically trapped. If they stayed they would either get killed, or run out of ammo and then killed. If they moved they could get killed moving, or they could make it.

They could consider themselves dead men walking…

They moved. They took turns on moving and shooting. Some of their guys jumped over the trunk of a nearby jeep.

Suddenly during one of the times Barbie was running between covers a brute force collided with his right leg, sending him crashing to the ground. He felt his knee twist, but there was no pain…

Not before his leg suddenly lit up like a million stars, burning as he had never felt it before! He tried to get up, but his leg just wouldn't take his orders the way he hoped it would.

He managed to crawl behind the Jeep that was standing a couple of yards ahead of him. His leg hurt so much it made his vision tunnel!

"Are you hurt?" Lieutenant Baker asked him once he reached the safety behind the truck.

Nodding his answer, Barbie turned around so he could sit against the Jeep's front wheel. When he looked down at his leg, a gruesome picture presented him. Red flesh was exposed, and he could see splinters of what had to be bone, protruding from the wound.

The look of it was nauseating. The blood dyed his pant leg crimson, and it still kept oozing out from the wound.

"Holy SHIT!" Lt. Baker exclaimed as he saw the grand wound that presented itself a little below Barbie's knee, before he in a very masculine way decided to faint by the look of it.

Knowing that he had to stop the bleeding, Barbie loosened his belt buckle and dragged his belt free. Ignoring the pain as best as he could, he tightened the belt around his thigh… When he had pulled it as tight as he possibly could, he cut a hole in the belt to buckle it in it's new place.

He bit back some bile before he yelled out to his team mates. "I need help over here!"

He was suddenly pulled out of his re-living of the nightmare when a volleyball hit his head.

Confused he looked around at his surroundings, seeing one of his brothers running towards him. A frightened look placed on his face.

"Are you all right?" Jake asked as he stopped beside him.

"Yeah, I'm good…" Barbie answered, still a little shaken…

"Why didn't you put your hands up to block it? We yelled your name…"

His brother's voice was worried, he clearly understood that something had been wrong. He just didn't know what…

"I…" Barbie trailed off as he looked for the right words, before settling for the easiest and most straight forward. "I had a flashback…"

He had tears in his eyes that threatened to escape, but he didn't care at the moment. Jake was a safe person… He could tell him anything without the fear of being teased about it, why then try to shut it in any longer…?

Squatting down beside his chair Jake repeated, "A flashback?"

"Yeah…"

"Anything I can do?" Jake's eyes contained sincere empathy, his voice was calm but worried.

Shaking his head Barbie bit his teeth together. "No, it's just something that happens every now and then…"

"You want me to stay here and keep you company then? Maybe some conversation would be good… We can talk about anything you want! Cars, chicks, sports… Or if you need to talk about what happened… I'm here for you!"

"You don't need to…"

"I know, but that's not the point! The point is, would you like me to…"

Giving a faint smile, Barbie looked over at his little brother before answering, "It would be nice."

"Okay!" Jake said before he stood back up again, "I'll just let them know I'm tiered…"

A mischievous grin fluttered across Jake's face before he grabbed the volleyball a few feet behind them and sped off in their siblings direction…

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**I hope you enjoyed this! **

**Once again; I'm sorry it took ages to post this chapter!**


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